As a travel writer, I share all the places I go and exciting things I do. It’s easy to think of my life as constantly moving from one amazing thing to the next. But social media and blogging present a warped image of my life, since all that gets shown is the good stuff.

You don’t see the days I spend in cafés, the sleepless nights, the hours spent writing or looking for an Internet connection. Running a website with 1.2 million monthly visitors is a full-time job, and when you throw in a penchant to start new projects (a blogging school, a hostel, a charity), I’m too often the busiest of bees. I like staying busy — but there’s busy and there’s overworked.

It wasn’t until I threw on my backpack again that I realized I was overworking.

I had bitten off more than I could chew; I was juggling too many balls. I couldn’t work full-time, travel full-time, and also find time to just enjoy the moment. As a consequence, everything suffered.

I love this job I have created. Writing is cathartic for me, and this blog is as much a journal for me as it is a travel guide for you. And I also love immersing myself in a destination, starting new businesses, and being on the move!

On their own, all the things I love in my life bring me tremendous joy.

But I realize I simply can’t juggle everything anymore. This website has too many moving parts, my nonprofit is picking up, my business partners and I want to create more hostels, and I want get offline more. Trying to do them all at once means I can’t do any of them well and they become sources of anxiety, not joy.

I hadn’t noticed this before because I was doing them all while at home in NYC.

But then I went on the road — and I felt like I was drowning. I just felt a weight on my shoulders I never felt before. I couldn’t enjoy anything.

While in a hostel in Mendoza, Argentina, I was sad with envy looking at the travelers around me without a care in the world. They were just there soaking it all in. None of them had to wake up for an 8am meeting or worry about video upload speeds. They could just enjoy the destination and worry about work when they got home. It didn’t travel with them.

Over the last few months, the thought of doing anything has left me paralyzed with anxiety. I found no pleasure in anything. Every time I did one thing, I thought about all the other things I wanted or had to do. If you haven’t experienced anxiety, you don’t know what I am talking about, but it’s not a good feeling to feel helpless for no reason.

So, sensing how things were going, I took February off and started the process of trying to get back to me. I spent weeks by myself. I went hiking in Patagonia. I deleted emails. I kept the computer shut. I went to bed at a normal bedtime. I read a lot.

As time went on and I stopped juggling so many plates at once, the eye-twitching anxiety melted away. It was lost somewhere on the W trek in Patagonia.

As I came back online and into my old life, I realized the same patterns were slowly re-emerging. Intentions are great, but action is all that matters. All I learned about the cause of my problems (trying to do it all) was being pushed aside by old habits.

I need to untangle my life and create new patterns where my passions bring me joy, not panic. And one of those new patterns is changing how I handle work.

I love this website and community, but I have let the nature of the Internet control me. It never shuts off. It’s there 24/7/365. Since I’m a workaholic, I don’t know how to stop. If I don’t set boundaries, work will consume me even further (through no one’s fault but my own) and that’s no good.

So I’m announcing some changes:

I’ve taken email off my phone. No longer will I check my emails and be a slave to my device. It’s felt amazing no longer constantly reacting to a ding like Pavlov’s dogs.

I’ve amended my email policy to be clearer on what emails will get a response. It’s too hard to keep up with 200 emails per day. As much as I want to help everyone, I am only one man.

I’m taking my weekends back and no longer working outside Monday through Friday. (My assistant is helping enforce this.)

For the time being, I’ve decided to stop answering comments on this blog. I went back and forth on this, but it’s something I need to do right now. I love reading your responses and seeing everyone interact with each other and can always be reached via email, social media, or the forums, but for now, I will no longer be responding to comments on the blog itself.

And, most dramatically, I am no longer going to travel and work at the same time. This is the biggest cause of my anxiety. It’s going to be just one or the other. When on the road, the computer will stay at home. I am at my best and at my happiest when I can focus on each thing individually. I am most excited about each when they stay away from each other. But when I’m trying to mix them, they bring me a lot of stress. I could handle the juggling before but not any more. To get back to my happy place, I plan to focus on each one separately. When at home, I’ll work. When on the road, I’ll travel like I used to… like how I saw those backpackers in Mendoza. This trip to Australia is the last time I’ll bring my computer on the road with me.

These are big changes for me and it’s going to take time to get used to them, but I know creating boundaries and limits will stop me from going crazy and wanting to pop Xanax like candy. Rome was not built in a day and mental health is a long journey.

But, as I write this now in Sydney, Australia, I feel more free. The small changes I’ve already made have helped a lot. My anxiety was because I was spinning too many dishes at once, but now I realize that when I just pick up one at a time, I can become my old, fulfilled self again.

Whew. I am impressed by the parameters you’re setting and glad you’ll be healthier and happier from them. I’ve found the working while traveling or just traveling dilemma to be the hardest for me. Sometimes I want to work on the road because otherwise I come back totally overwhelmed just wishing I had gotten some things done while away. But the opposite can also be true. It’s about finding the balance that works for you, I guess. I’m glad this is a step in the right direction for you!

Good job. The whole point of this was that you loved traveling. Glad you’re getting it back. I also think it’s very smart of you to openly talk about anxiety, both in general and in the specific context that even if you’re doing your dream job, you can still be anxious

Good for you Matt. I too had too much on my plate and dealt with panic attacks but didn’t do anything about it until I received my cancer diagnosis. It was the kick in the ass I needed.
Stay healthy!!!

Thanks for writing this reply Eileen! I donate my time doing workshops for cancer survivors. I teach techniques for time boundaries as a way to manage stress going forward after treatment. Thanks for this great topic Matt.

I’ve noticed that you’ve started a lot of different stuff recently and I was actually worried about that. I noticed a while ago that you haven’t been answering comments. I completely understand everything that you’re doing. (You have an assistant?! That’s cool.) 1.2 million follows, that is nearly the same amount of people in the state I live in. I hope you do well on your travels.

Surprising. I went through the exact same procedure while Hitchhiking down Patagonia in February this year, I am still releasing stuff from the past that comes up. It´s impressing what Nature does to you and how it heals from the inside by just being there.
I did not get back to my blog yet. I need to focus on myself now. Glad you figured out the same for you!
Good luck for your future with everything! Upward Spiral from now on!

Thanks for being so open about your anxiety and how you are managing it. I struggle with anxiety and am also self employed, so understand all too well how it can compromise work life balance. Wishing you wellness in work and travels, Matt!

I know exactly how you feel, paralyzed by anxiety. I’m there right now. I’m glad you’re taking charge of how your life is run. Good on ya. You’ve built a loyal following, and I think they’ll stick around no matter where you are.

Good for you, Matt! I applaud your openness in sharing this journey with others. As you’ve helped people through the years with travel advice, now you’re helping so many who struggle with anxiety. I think you’ve written yourself a good prescription that we all can learn from. Enjoy your travels!

Great to hear this news, Matt. It can be so tiring to do everything at once and, as you say, it means you never enjoy any of it. I’ve also struggled with the balance between working and travelling. I try to focus on one or the other, but have yet to achieve the zen-like focus you now seem to have found. Good luck with it all. And enjoy my hometown – Sydney is a great place to not do any work! 🙂

Love this! This is something I constantly struggle with. I am finding myself on the computer a ton lately, and I need to make a change in order to keep my sanity. I love my blog and my business, but I need to separate them better.

Hey, well done for making the changes! I’m from the UK and life here is very busy.. I know this feeling and am having anxiety issues at the moment. I would dearly like to just go travel but sadly it’s not an option at the moment. Maybe the folks on here with these issues should get together for a bit of a freedom chat away from this thing that kinda takes over your life for a bit?

I’d like to join the chorus of thank yous. Matt, your openness about stress and anxiety is so welcome. I’m in a similar boat, in the middle of overhauling my life and my work and I just wanted to express what a relief it is to know that someone I am so inspired by is dealing with the same things. I want you to know I am standing in solidarity with you and I hope that heartens you, even if it’s just a little.

Thank you so much for this blog post. I think it’s great that you’re not answering comments on this blog anymore for the time being! I just want to say how happy it made me to see this article when I woke up this morning as someone who loves to travel, but also has horrible anxiety and panic attacks. Taking care of your well being should always be a persons first priority. – Paloma

Good for you Matt. Sometimes its best just to step away from it all , and just find yourself again. Looks like your trip was incredible! Life can be very stressful sometimes. Those of us who can bypass all the problems and find the solution will always come out of it more stronger than before. I’m happy your doing well Matt. Keep up everything your doing! You always inspire others with your stories and accomplishments.

Matt! Yes, set your boundaries and live your life. So funny that you started a business based on boundless exploration but then bounded it by structure and expectations. Living a life of extremes is no good, so very glad to see you found a structure for your unstructured life. Peace!

Best of luck to you, Matt! I’ve enjoyed following your travels and hope to follow them for a long time to come. Thank you for opening up about your anxiety, as many of us suffer from it. Congrats on your decision and good luck!

Bravo! = ) Not only are you setting yourself free, you are blazing a trail for others with your example.

I think your choices are all good ones. Mental health is like anything else. It exists on a spectrum from lacking to optimal. Each life decision moves us more toward one end or the other. Thanks for sharing your process.

Gosh but I am very proud of you Matt and more proud that you shared your story with us. By sharing this I am sure you have helped more people than just yourself. Many of us, including me, understand 100% what you have been going through. Stay true to yourself!

Wow! Wishing you the best of luck, Matt! I got to witness a similar process first-hand and I was wondering when one of you was actually going to be publicly honest about all the downsides of this lifestyle. It broke my heart to helplessly witness the same thing happen to my ex-boyfriend. Unlike you, he still pretends it’s nothing too serious that a little admiration and a few positive comments can’t solve…Unfortunately, moving between landscapes can also keep you distracted enough as to never have to look inside you too deeply. I hope you manage to stick to your decisions 🙂

I went through a similar experience recently. I took a trip for a new travelogue between Canada and Chile, and had three books sitting on my laptop that needed to be published. So while I travelled and took notes for the travelogue, I kept investing time in these three books, as well. It was too much: I was sitting on buses all day, spending evenings looking for hotels, food stalls and a place to have a beer, while typing up the travelogue and working on these three books. I couldn’t juggle all four projects.

So I decided to take a break from my trip. Not by going home, but by staying in one town (which happened to be Leon in Nicaragua) and not allowing myself to move on before all three books had been published. It took me a week, but then they were off my plate and I could completely focus on the travelogue and the trip I was doing.

It made me decide that this was how I wanted to do it from now on: one thing at a time. Not only does juggling with projects versus time work against your health and mood, it also takes the quality of your work down. I don’t travel to have fun with fellow Westerners, but to write about local life. I decided on my next book this week, but I won’t get started with anything until my current project is out of the way. It really helps everything else in life, too.

Great article! Sometimes no matter what our jobs we can fall into a rat race. I just dropped everything and went to Bali, Thailand, and India so I could be by myself and clear my head. Honestly, it was the most stress free month I had had in probably a decade. Everyone should do it!

While I am sorry you may be posting a little less, I really was afraid you were going to announce you were ending the blog. Thank you for keeping it alive and here’s to the positive changes and needed boundaries!

You should obviously do what you get the most from, but it seems you just need to structure things better. Write up some SOPs, hire a couple of VAs for very specific tasks and reduce your entire work on the site to just those things you enjoy. With 1.2m visitors you easily have the income to do all these things.

Anxiety and the “workplace”… You just can’t get away from it. I left my 9-5 and also my serving job because of anxiety and stress. Now I can see how living your dream can also give you anxiety and stress!

And it’s so easy to say “balance,” but no one ever gives you tips or ideas to achieve that balance. I think rules/guidelines that you have put on yourself is a great idea! One step at a time!

You’ve got ONE life to live, no use living in a constant state of anxiety!!

Fantastic post and show of courage Matt. You and your site and your readers, of which I am one, will benefit from this decision. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about wandering and travel: “Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.” – Wendell Berry

As a long-time journalist and one who works with his wife, and she with me, we have always held that if we are consistently traveling, wandering, exploring behind the lens of a camera or constantly with an eye to the story we might be able to tell, we find ourselves too often missing the point of why we were traveling to begin with. Putting the camera, smartphone, tablet, sketch pad and notebook away, even for just a few days, is the lifeblood that feeds restoration and inspiration.

Thanks for your openness Matt. I also want to tell you that lost my son to cancer this past year, and I know you also lost a good friend. Sometimes we do so many things that we love, in part because we lost someone we love. Grieving is hard work, and it can also bring anxiety, because we realize our lives too, can end suddenly. Be good to yourself, take time to grieve, it is a process. Bless you!!

Hi, Matt, love this post and you should give time for yourself and don’t be hard on yourself. Like you say, travel is travel, work is work…and it should be like that. Like me, now I am running my 2 months travel blog and it’s already took half of my day, I sleep late just to write and editing pictures and get some ideas. Your post makes me realize that the internet does control us and we shall create boundaries.

I totally feel you Matt and wish you all the very best of luck in getting your mojo back.

And you will!

I’m a workaholic too and coupled with being married, having a young tween, having a full-time corporate job, plus all my travel blog associated activities, makes people wonder how I get everything done!

The trick: No social media at the weekend, no writing about travel until I actually get back from that particular travel, I write once a week, I do my social media engagement and contact in the early hours of the morning, and I don’t “do” activities in December at all!

And I only do things that I personally enjoy. If not, I’m not doing it.

It seems to work!

Good luck once again and don’t worry about your readers. We’ll be fine. 🙂

Thanks for this open and honest post! It seems so ideal if your work is your passion, but it can also make things hard because you can easily get lost in work without realizing it.
We’ve just started a travel blog beside our full-time jobs not so long ago and we are still searching for the best way to balance our lives. Because usually after working, blogging and travelling we don’t have much time for sleeping neither for friends and family which is certainly not good in the long term. Guess it’s time to set up some rules.
Wishing you all the best, Matt, your blog is a great inspiration! 🙂

Thanks for the inspiration,
about to go on a European vacation that should have been done 25 years ago. NEVER TOO OLD THOUGH RIGHT?

Going to go get right with myself. The last 7 mos. proved that being self-centered is o.k. after 45 years of thinking of others first. I have not become selfish, but have become more focused on what is good for me.

I honestly don’t know how you or any other popular blogger has the time or patience to keep up with the content, granted I understand it is your job. Kudos to those who do it. have huge gaps in mine at times and glad I can because it is not my job and I think I would hate it if it did become my job. No matter what you have to look out for your mental health and you are the only one who can do it. So good for you, any readers who care at all will encourage you. Enjoy normal life again!

Hi Matt- this is my second time reading this post. I first read it when you published it and I specifically pulled it up to read it again today after beginning to feel the same way. Joggling a full- time job, while starting a business and trying to blog consistently was creating illogical anxiety.

It’s interesting how things of our own creation can produce such a high level of anxiety. While I’m not sure what the explaination is, I think anxiety of our making can sometimes be worse than when it’s caused by external, uncontrollable factors. Perhaps it’s the synergy between stress over limitations and stress over achievement.

I hope your new self-governing rules are serving you well!! My new rule will be: no work after dinner time.

Great article Matt. Definitely helped me out since I have been in the same boat recently. Dropped out of college and have been traveling while working as a full time copywriter, and online marketer, and while it is amazing to have this freedom and be able to do what so many people only dream of, few people see me when I am huddled outside the office at a farm workaway at 4 am because the internet only uncaps in the wee hours of the morning, or when I am in the process of a mild mental and emotional break down because internet speeds have been so slow that I have 30 articles to write in a single day. Definitely agree with everything you said and will be doing an examination of my travel and work habits moving forward to create that balance you talked about

Thank you for sharing your experience and feelings so honestly Matt! This really resonates for me (and my husband) as I am a former workaholic (when I lived in Sydney, Australia) – not anymore. My husband is excellent with work-life balance, which I greatly admire and am constantly inspired by. Our blog has been growing over the past 2 years but I’ve intentionally kept tight reins on it, for fear it may take over our life in unhealthy and unmanageable ways. Now we are ready to take it to the next level but we only want to do it in ways that are healthy and sustainable – which means setting strong boundaries and being clear on what we do and don’t want to do. In a world where so many people and ever growing social media demands expect us to be “on” and contactable 24/7 it takes a lot of courage and self discipline to step back and do what works for you personally. I/we admire your willingness to self reflect and make big changes as you are. It is a huge inspiration to us and reassures us that we are on the right track with what we are doing, growing slowly and consciously… not getting caught up in the temptation to blog or vlog daily (like many others we know) as deep down, we know that would not bring us joy and would ultimately not only be unsustainable but potentially destroy us, our blog/channel and our relationship. Thank you for being a voice of honesty, reason and sanity in an insanely addicted world that so often just doesn’t know when to stop and rebalance. Your philosophy and approach is paving the way for how we want to show up as travelers, bloggers/vloggers and as a valuable resource to our community. It’s the main reason we’ve signed up for your Superstar Blogging Course. Wishing you all the best.

Thank you so much for being transparent and sharing! I have found the anxiety creep up on me too and I have been trying to make some changes to spend less time online and more time in real life! I just found your blog and I am really enjoying it! Thank you!

Great to hear you will separate the two. It’s all about knowing your parameters and it seems like you’re good at listening to yourself and your needs 🙂
I’m currently a digital nomad and there are days I wake up in a hostel and work all day in my bed or at a local cafe. Sometimes there are days I’d like more than anything to step out the door and venture in whatever country I am in. But work calls!